Gisela Elsner
Gisela Elsner ( born 2 May 1937 in Nuremberg, † 13 May 1992, Munich) was a German writer.
Curriculum vitae
Gisela Elsner came from an upper middle class family and grew up in Nuremberg - Erlenstegen; her father Richard Elsner (1905-1994) was a director at Siemens. She attended a grammar school in Nuremberg, where she in 1957 her Abitur.
Until 1959 she studied philosophy, German literature and theater in Vienna. Then she lived as a freelance writer at various locations: Lake Starnberg, in Frankfurt am Main, 1963-1964 in Rome, from 1964 to 1970 in London, then in Paris, Hamburg, New York and finally in Munich.
On August 30, 1958, she married in Planegg near Munich, the writer and editor Klaus Roehler; They were divorced after Gisela Elsner had left her husband and her three year old son Oscar.
Gisela Elsner in 1958, 1962 and 1963 at meetings of the Group 47 in part, since 1962, she worked in the Dortmund group 61, and since 1971 she was a member of the PEN center of Germany.
A mixture of personal problems, literary and political prospects of success eventually led to the total isolation in their apartment in Schwabing Giselastraße 4 and 13 May 1992 her suicide by jumping out of a window on the 4th floor of the private clinic Josephinum in Munich. There she had been admitted the previous day after collapsing on the street.
Literary work
Gisela Elsner was the same with her first novel, The Giant Dwarfs ( 1964), for which she received the "Prix Formentor " famous overnight. Your satirical look at the hypocritical world of the German post-war society caused quite a stir at the time. In Austria, the book was temporarily classified as harmful to minors.
The first episode of the Giant Dwarfs, the story " The Meal " was already published in an anthology Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Therefore Enzensberger is also considered discoverer Elsner. He coined in the introduction to his anthology of the much-quoted characterization Elsner as a " humorist of the monstrous that comes in ordinary to the fore ." Also at meetings of the Group 47 Elsner had read chapters from the 1962 and 1963 Giant dwarfs.
Overall Elsner published during his lifetime nine novels, two volumes of short stories, a book of essays, three radio plays and the opera libretto peace season. The reception of their work was overshadowed by the success of their debut album, which is commonly regarded as a very significant book. 1991 Elsner threw her publisher, the Random House, the public " scrapping " of her work before. You saw himself within the West German Literature " ghettoized literary ". At the same time they rejected the label " women's literature " from discriminatory.
Meanwhile, the Hamburg Germanist Christine Künzelmann endeavored to rediscover the author and satirist Gisela Elsner, by issuing a complete edition of the Berlin publishing firm. In May 2012, Sulzbach- Rosenberg International Gisela Elsner company founded in literature archive.
Political point of view
Gisela Elsner suffered all her life under the discord between its bourgeois origins and their radical opposition to all commoners. This she squeezed so drastically as possible in the party in a newspaper of the German Communist Party ( DKP) printed in February 1978 interview with the playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz from:
"Basically me puke to writers who do not get away from the idea of being an outsider or a prophet, and that which they refer to as their individual freedom to play off against the collective freedom try to pass on the community."
Gisela Elsner sympathized strongly with the GDR socialism, became a member of the DKP, from which she resigned in the face of suspected reformist tendencies in June 1989. In October 1989, she was again a member and also held after the downfall of the SED dictatorship in the GDR at their communist beliefs firmly.
Filming
About the final phase of their lives turned Gisela Elsner's son Oskar Roehler in 2000 the film The Untouchables with Hannelore Elsner - who has no family relationship to Gisela Elsner - in the lead role. In Roehler's film autobiographical sources of life Elsner is represented by the actress Lavinia Wilson.
Works
- The Giant Dwarf, Reinbek 1964
- The young, Reinbek 1968
- The touch prohibition Reinbek 1970, new edition criminal Verlag, Berlin, 2006
- Mr. Leiselheimer and further attempts to cope with the reality, München [ua ] 1973
- The point victory, Reinbek 1977
- The Ordeal, Reinbek 1980
- Offside, Reinbek 1982
- Taming, Reinbek 1984, new edition criminal Verlag, Berlin, 2002
- The wind-egg Reinbek 1987
- Peace season, Hannover 1988 ( libretto, music: Christof Herzog)
- Danger spheres, Vienna [ et al ] 1988
- Air raid alarm, Vienna [ua ], 1989, was published in 2009 with a corrected version, checked on the manuscript, as part of the complete works of criminals publishing Berlin
- Wasps in the snow, Berlin 2001 (together with Klaus Roehler )
- Holy Blood, Berlin: Criminal Verlag 2007 ( German first publication 's 70th birthday ). ISBN 978-3-935843-82-9
- Otto, the major shareholder, Berlin: Criminal Verlag 2008 ( according to an unpublished manuscript )
- Curses a cursed - Critical writings I, Berlin: Criminal Verlag 2011
- In the literary ghetto - Critical writings II, Berlin: Criminal Verlag 2011
- Attempts to deal with the reality. Collected Stories Volume 1, Berlin: the publishing firm 2012
- Ordeals. Collected Stories Volume 2, Berlin: the publishing firm 2012